Chapter 4: What the Email Said
I didn't read the rest of the email until the turbulence passed.
Carolyn had turned toward the window.
She wasn't sleeping — I could see the tension in her shoulders — but she was giving me space, and I was grateful for it.
I took the paper out of my bag and smoothed it against my knee.
The email was from Richard to a name I didn't recognize: P.
Hartwell.
The subject line was *Re: Hawaii — anniversary cover.* It was part of a thread.
Richard's message was the most recent.
*Taking M.
on the trip as planned.
Keeps things clean on the home front while the transfer clears.
She won't ask questions — she never does.
Back by the 14th.
Have the paperwork ready.*
I read it three times.
*While the transfer clears.*
I put the paper away and took out my phone.
The in-flight WiFi cost twelve dollars.
I paid it without hesitating.
Our joint savings account loaded slowly.
I watched the spinning circle and told myself I was prepared for whatever number appeared.
I was not prepared.
The balance was four hundred and twelve dollars.
Eighteen months ago it had been over ninety thousand.
My hands were steady.
That surprised me.
I had expected them to shake, but they didn't.
I just sat there looking at the number while the clouds moved slowly past the window and somewhere behind the curtain Richard ordered another drink.
I opened my email and typed a message to our youngest daughter, Sophie.
She was twenty-two, sharp, and the only one of our children who had gone into finance.
*Sophie.
I need you to call me the moment we land.
Don't tell your father.
Please.*
I sent it.
Then I sat back and closed my eyes.
"He moved money," I said quietly.
Carolyn turned from the window.
"How much?"
"Most of it."
She exhaled.
"The account he opened in February — I saw a statement once.
He left it on the kitchen table at his apartment.
I wasn't supposed to see it." She hesitated.
"There was a name on it.
A business name.
Something with the word Hartwell."
The same name from the email.
"Do you know who P.
Hartwell is?" I asked.
"A partner of some kind.
I don't know more than that." She paused.
"Richard talked about restructuring his assets.
I thought he meant for tax purposes.
I didn't ask."
I nodded slowly.
I was already thinking about what I knew and what I didn't.
I knew Richard's company.
I knew his salary, or what he had always told me it was.
I knew the mortgage was paid and the cars were in his name and every account we shared had his name listed first.
I had never thought to look at what that arrangement actually meant for me.
"Do you have a lawyer?" Carolyn asked.
"No."
"I do.
She's good." She took a card from her bag and placed it on my tray table.
"She doesn't like men who move money before their wives find out."
I looked at the card.
A name: *Grace Ellison, Family Law.*
I picked it up.
Behind the curtain, I heard Richard laugh at something — a loud, relaxed laugh, the laugh of a man who believed everything was still under control.
The card went into my bag next to the email.
When the flight attendant came by, I asked for a glass of champagne.
It was my anniversary, after all.
She brought it with a smile.
I drank it slowly and thought about the word *cover* in the subject line of that email, and what exactly Richard had needed to cover, and for how long, and whether the ninety thousand dollars was the beginning of what he had taken or the end of it.
The answer, I suspected, was not going to be the one I wanted.
My phone buzzed.
Sophie had replied.
*Mom, you're scaring me.
I'll be on the phone the second you land.
Are you okay?*
I typed back: *I will be.
I love you.*
Then I put my phone away and watched the clouds and waited for Hawaii.
May you like
Somewhere over the Pacific, I made a quiet decision.
I was not going to disappear.
